


Watchdogs

by emeraldcranberryjuice



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Journalism, M/M, Slow Burn, reporters au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-03 03:43:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12740331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldcranberryjuice/pseuds/emeraldcranberryjuice
Summary: The last thing Kuroo wants is for a new journalist to join his news team.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Haikyuu!!

“I telling you, this is going to be for the best,” Yaku said.

Kuroo began walking double-time through the labyrinth of the Nekoma Times to the break room despite the fact that the editor-in-chief practically a foot shorter than him. Kuroo was convinced that Yaku’s speed was motivated by crushing their political enemies. Bokuto believed it was the three energy drinks and espresso he drank every day.

Debatable.

“And I’m telling you, we don’t need anyone else on the new team. It’s been the four of us for the past year. Just last year we got first place for our investigation on the city staff budgets. Another reporter is going to slow us down,” Kuroo countered.

They had been having the same argument for the past six months. The Nekoma Times was the second-largest newspaper in the city, and Kuroo, Kenma, Bokuto, and Akaashi worked together at the paper since they graduated from university making up the news team. But they’ve been a journalist short ever since Kuroo was promoted to replace the retiring news editor, and all of a sudden their publisher, Nekomata, decided that they needed someone else. 

Yaku sighed and poured another cup of coffee. “Walk with me,” he said striding out of the break room, past a bay of cubicles, past Kageyama explaining – screaming – at Hinata how to properly format obituaries again, through the lobby where Yachi was explaining to an elderly gentleman that a broken fencepost didn’t constitute as breaking news, down a hall and to the back steps of the office building.

Yaku pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, jammed a cigarette between his lips, and flicked his bright red lighter to life. His shoulders dropped as smoke poured from his mouth. “Kuroo, the decision has already been made. The guy is starting tomorrow morning. You can’t get rid of him unless you have legitimate grounds for his dismissal.”

“But why weren’t we involved? The team should’ve picked someone.” Kuroo hated the petulant whine in his voice.

Yaku raised an eyebrow. “I’m going ignore that. Trust me, this guy is good. He interned with newspapers throughout university. Was the editor-in-chief of his school’s newspaper. For god’s sake, he minored in statistics.” He coughed. “Do you honestly think that I would leave your team with some asshole who didn’t know what he was doing?” 

He didn’t answer, instead choosing to let Yaku blow smoke at the pigeons sitting on the dumpster right next to the back steps. With every puff of smoke, the pigeons would scatter, some flying to the trash of the coffeeshop located across the street. The only pigeon that wasn’t scared of Yaku’s smoke was an all-black pigeon with a shimmer of green on the back of its neck. The bird flew into the window of Bokuto’s truck when he was coming back to the office late one night after a fire at a downtown apartment building. Bokuto, the idiot, started crying and fed the bird half a muffin squashed between two seats. Now the bird won’t fucking leave the back porch.

Bokuto started calling the pigeon “Keiji” because his green feathers apparently looked like the education reporter’s eyes. 

Akaashi disagreed.

“Fine,” Kuroo finally said. “I’ll fucking train him and everything. But I bet he’s going to run the first time he’s called out in a city council meeting or the city manager tells him he’s an idiot.” The city manager was an asshole, and her voice could go operatic when she was angry at reporters.

“I’ll take that bet.” Yaku jabbed the cigarette butt into the ashtray and held out his hand. “If he quits in two months without your team being a bag of dicks and putting his voice recorder in jello or whatever lameass prank Bokuto has planned, I’ll give all of you a week of paid vacation and you can have all say in the hiring of your news team. But ––” Yaku smiled. “If I win, you’ve got to call me ‘sir’ during our editors meetings and shave your head.”

“Deal.”

*****

“Excuse me.”

The small blonde jumped and her arm knocked over her Starbucks cup, spilling her latte all over her pick sticky notes and down the front of Tsukishima’s pants. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Were you standing there long? Yaku’s going to kill me. I’m not supposed to listen to music during work hours. He’s going to fire me. Holy shit,” she rambled.

“I’m fine,” Tsukishima winced. He grabbed a couple of tissues from her desk and dabbed at his stained grey slacks. Great way to make a first impression.

The blonde, however, was still spirling. “Oh my god, he’s going to make me stop drinking coffee at my desk. It’s the only way I can stay awake in the morning. What if I fall asleep and come in late? What if I miss a call or someone comes into the office and steals everything. I’m going to be complicit in a robbery.”

“I won’t tell Yaku,” Tsukishima said. He only met Yaku once during his interview. While the editor-in-chief seemed like the type to kick someone in the balls if they so much as didn’t use correct grammar, he doubted Yaku would punish this tiny blonde person. “Just point me in the direction of Kuroo Tetsurou and I’ll forget that my balls are stained on my first day of work.”

The receptionist –– Yachi, by her nameplate –– moaned. “Oh my god, I’ve screwed up your first day.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. Just tell me where I can find Kuroo.”

The pink sticky notes crumbled in her hand, and Yachi threw the wad into the garbage. “I just need to get you signed into the system and get a picture of you for your name badge.”

“Can we do it on a day when I’m not covered in coffee?”

The blonde looked torn between laughing and crying. “Tomorrow morning. But don’t tell anyone.” She handed him a visitor’s badge. “Kuroo and everyone are on the second floor.”

As the elevator doors closed, Tsukishima let out a sigh and ran his hands through his hair. The coffee would no doubt stain his pants, but he would rather have coffee on his crotch than try to get it out in the bathroom and make it look like he pissed himself. Really, how bad could this be?

The doors opened into a large open room that was sectioned off into three sets of cubicles, each –– he guessed –– filled with the different editorial departments. A short man with sandy blond hair strode out of a windowed office. “Tsukishima, good to see you,” Yaku said, holding out his hand.

He shook his hand. “Thanks again for this opportunity,” Tsukishima said.

“Let me introduce you to the other members of your team.” Tsukishima followed Yaku to the corner of the room where four men were huddled around a whiteboard behind the largest desk. They turned as Yaku got closer. “Let me introduce you to Nekoma’s news team. Bokuto Koutarou –– crime and breaking news reporter. Akaashi Keiji who covers education. Your photographer, Kenma Kozume. And this is your new supervisor and news editor Kuroo Tetsurou.” 

This made Tsukishima suddenly embarrassed to be standing in front of the other team members with a coffee-soaked crotch. Kuroo’s shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows, exposing toned forearms stained with ink. His hair was atrocious and fell into his eyes, but Tsukishima could still feel them scanning him up and down, evaluating whether he was worthy to be standing in front of them.

Pathetic. As if Tsukishima didn’t graduate with a degree in communications with honors and spend the past four years being coffee lackey and covering whatever scraps of a story were thrown his way. 

Kei smiled and held out his hand, not taking his eyes off Kuroo’s. “Pleasure.” 

Kuroo cocked his head. “Welcome to the team.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for mild panic attack

“Okay, what’s going on this week?”

Kuroo turned to the whiteboard. Half of the whiteboard was sectioned off and divided into the days of the week that was filled with stories to come out every day throughout the week. The other half of the whiteboard was a giant question mark, but it was filled with phrases like “school administration spending,” “opioids?” and “building safety.” The wall behind the whiteboard was covered in awards given to the news team from when the Nekoma Times first opened. 

Kei’s head was swimming, realizing that he was actually here and a part of the team. Akaashi, Bokuto, and Kenma leaned against the front row of desks, and Kei should probably stop gawking at the newsroom like an idiot and do his damn job. He shrugged his messenger bag onto the only empty desk of the five desks in the corner that was conveniently right in from of Kuroo’s, grabbed his notebook, and plopped on the edge of his desk next to Bokuto. 

“I know we’ve got a couple of things lined up already for this week, but I want to make sure we have enough content to actually fill a goddamn newspaper while I’m busy training Tsukki here,” Kuroo said. Kei frowned at the nickname. “Sorry, Tsukishima’s a mouthful.”

“I finally have the list of proposed budget cuts for next school year,” Akaashi offered. 

“Anything super spicy?”

Akaashi flipped through his notebook. “Some of them I expected, but I know some parents are going to get pissed off about some of these. They want to completely cut music and art from the middle school because apparently it costs too much to teach kids how to draw, but it’s not too expensive to have taxpayers pay for the administrators to go to a beachside hotel for ‘training.’ I’ve got a call into the state to see if it’s actually legal to cut the arts.”

Kuroo snorted. “God, they’re so full of shit. Anything else?”

“They want to close Date Tech again.”

Kuroo and Bokuto started laughing. What the hell? He must’ve looked confused why they were laughing at closing a school because Kenma leaned over and said, “The School Board has been wanting to close the school for years because they have low enrollment numbers, but that’s the reason why the students are successful – because the students can work one-on-one with the teachers. Keiji’s written about it extensively.”

“Point blank is that it’s never going to happen,” Kuroo said folding his arms. “Okay, so Akaashi’s got a damn mess to write about. Tsukki, I’ve been covering city government for the last couple of years, but since you’re here, you’ll be picking up where I left up.” 

Kuroo flipped though a calendar on his desk. “There’s a city council meeting at four this afternoon. I’ll go to it with you.” He grinned. “They’re going to be talking about adding more stop signs. You can write about that for tonight’s deadline.”

As Bokuto began rambling about counterfeit bills or fires or who knows what, Kei’s head began to swim. He knew the Nekoma news staff was good (which is why he applied for the fucking job in the first place), but suddenly he felt like he was at a Christmas party and he was the idiot wearing the flashing sweater. Kei didn’t fit in. Yaku didn’t tell him why it had taken over a year to fill the empty hole in the news team, but he realized it was because they didn’t see it as a position that they needed to fill. They operated like clockwork, and Kei was going to be the grain of sand to stop the gears. 

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” 

The laughter at whatever Bokuto was talking about cut off. “It’s just out those doors,” Akaashi said, pointing. 

Kei shoved his way through the doors, feeling his stomach turning. The bathrooms were right next to the fridge. Too many people. He saw a door to the stairs to the left and went through it without thinking. Kei sank on the nearest step and yanked his phone out of his pocket.

“Kei?”

“Hey, Akiteru. Do you have a second?” His shaky voice echoed throughout the stairwell.

“Of course,” his brother responded. He heard Akiteru’s chair scratch against the wood floors in his office and the door shut. “How’s the first day?”

Kei could hear the concern in his voice under his pleasant question. He chewed on his lip, thinking how he could answer the question without sending his brother into “psychologist” mode. “It’s fine,” he eventually responded.

“Just fine?”

“Damn it, Akiteru. I’m not one of your patients.”

Akiteru laughed. “Trust me, if you were one of my patients, you would’ve dropped by now. I would’ve annoyed you to death.”

Kei’s chuckle sounded slightly hysterical in his ears. “What am I doing here?” Akiteru didn’t respond, letting Kei take his time continuing. “I just – today has been horrible, and now my new editor, who is a grade A jackass, is treating me with kid gloves and giving me garbage to write about when everyone else gets to do hard stories that mean something. I’m really fucking frustrated, and I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s only your first day,” Akiteru reminded him.

“I know that,” Kei groaned. “But when I got this job, I thought I’d be able to jump right in and help them out. I know that it will take me some time to get used to the beat, but Kuroo,” he spat the name, “is acting like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Akiteru laughed. “Is he that hot?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t let people get under your skin. He must be pretty damn hot if he’s pissed you off when you’ve only been at the job for less than two hours.”

Kei sighed. “Akiteru.”

“Yes?”

“Just tell me what the fuck to do.”

His brother laughed again. “Kei, you know how it works. I’m not supposed to give you advice.” He paused. “But take a deep breath. It’s just your first day. Kuroo’s probably just seeing what you’re made of. So be the brother that I know you are and blow them all away. And remember, don’t have sex with your boss on your first day of work.”

“Goodbye, Akiteru.”

“I’ll make sure to send you my bill.”

The door opened, and Akaashi poked his head out. “Tsukishima? Are you better now?” Kei nodded. “This doesn’t look like the bathroom to me, but I won’t tell Kuroo.” 

“I appreciate it.”

Akaashi sat on the step next to Kei. “You know, this is where I came to freak out when I started two years ago.” He smiled. “The old news editor was a jackass. He asked me if I even took journalism classes because I was apparently asking stupid questions.”

He paused. “Our team is close. We spend a lot of hours together. Sometimes this job really sucks like when people accuse you of lying or call you fake news. But Kuroo yells at them, and then we go get drinks at the Crow’s Nest. We’re a team. Just knowing these guys have my back make the shitty parts less shitty.”

“I just want Kuroo to think that I can do this job,” Tsukishima blurted out.

Akaashi chuckled. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just, Kuroo may act like a brat some times and throw a hissy fit if he feels blindsided by something, such as Yaku hiring a new reporter without letting him know.” He paused and looked at Tsukishima. “Trust me, if he didn’t want you to be part of the team, then he wouldn’t be offering to go to the meeting with you.”

*****

After Akaashi left the stairwell, Kei actually went to the bathroom to clean up the coffee. It probably wouldn’t make a good first impression on the city officials if it looks like he pissed coffee all over himself. 

City hall was located a couple of blocks away from the office. As soon as they made it out of the front door of the newspaper, Kuroo began bombarding Kei with questions. “Didn’t you read my resume?” Kei asked him.

Kuroo laughed and pushed his aviators up the bridge of his nose. “Just pretend that I didn’t read your resume. What brought you to the area?”

To get away from a small town. To see what it was like to live in a city with actual gay people that he could meet. “My brother lives here. It wasn’t that tough of a decision to make when I started looking for universities,” Kei responded instead.

“What does he do?”

“He’s a psychologist.”

“Where?”

“What are you doing? Interviewing me?” Kei asked.

Kuroo laughed again. “What can I say? It’s second nature. Makes it a pain in the ass when it comes to dating, though.”

Nope. Kei didn’t want to think of Kuroo and dating in any way, shape, or form or how his profile looked in the afternoon sun or how his nose was slightly crooked, making his sunglasses slip from his face. Instead, Kei shrugged his bag higher on his shoulder. “So what should I expect from the meeting?” he asked Kuroo.

The editor launched into an explanation of the inner working of the city government – how the city council members leaned politically and who usually sided with who. Kuroo stopped in the street. “How are you at dealing with confrontation?” he asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“Tsukishima, I covered this beat for five years. These guy – they can be real assholes. They’ll lie to you and string you along if you let them. What will you do when they shut doors in your face or read your articles out during the middle of meetings just to point out everything they think is wrong? What will you do when the mayor call you down to his office just to tell you that he refuses to ever talk to you again? Can you handle someone calling you despicable? Vile?”

The honest answer was no. In the back of his mind, Kei knew that politicians typically didn’t like the work of reporters, and he wasn’t the warmest person by nature. He didn’t know how he would react. There really isn’t a way to prepare for it. Others like Kuroo can warn you, let you know of the possibility. But is anyone ever truly prepared to be humiliated?

But Kuroo was standing there, staring at him. 

“Yes.”

Kuroo didn’t say anything, and Kei didn’t know if he gave the right answer. 

“It will happen,” Kuroo stated. 

Kei bristled under his tone, how Kuroo said it as if it was a fact that these people would berate him. “Well it doesn’t have to happen today because you made us late for the meeting,” Kei retorted. He began walking towards the tall building that he could only assume was city hall.

He heard Kuroo squawk and run after him.


End file.
